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“Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout. Our requests for support of transgender kids have grown, and Girl Scouts of Colorado is working to best support these children, their families and the volunteers who serve them. In this case, an associate delivering our program was not aware of our approach. She contacted her supervisor, who immediately began working with the family to get the child involved and supported in Girl Scouts. We are accelerating our support systems and training so that we’re better able to serve all girls, families and volunteers.”

That high-pitched noise you hear is Lady Baden-Powell screaming in torment from beyond the grave.

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A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners.

So it’s actually semi-rich people supporting higher taxes — not on themselves — but rather people who are maybe twenty or thirty times richer than they are.

I see.

Still no word on why these public-spirited people don’t just send in a check to the Treasury. They could do that right now — if they really wanted to.

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It’s readership (as reflected in the comments), on the other hand, remain stuck in another universe.

But, in recent years, some financiers have chosen to live in a government-backed featherbed. Their platform seems to be socialism for tycoons and capitalism for the rest of us. They’re not evil at all. But when the system allows you more than your fair share, it’s human to grab. That’s what explains featherbedding by both unions and tycoons, and both are impediments to a well-functioning market economy.

And let’s ask how many of these folks are registered Democrats, shall we?

The upshot is that financial institutions boost leverage in search of supersize profits and bonuses. Banks pretend that risk is eliminated because it’s securitized. Rating agencies accept money to issue an imprimatur that turns out to be meaningless. The system teeters, and then the taxpayer rushes in to bail bankers out. Where’s the accountability?

The Democrats are pushing for more spending and more debt, emphasizing the supposed need to spend more on teachers and schools. In fact, however, this country has carried out a laboratory experiment over the past four decades, and we have conclusively proved that more spending on education has nothing to do with successfully educating our children.

In the remote, windswept state of North Dakota, job fairs often bustle with more recruiters than potential workers. The North Dakota unemployment rate hasn’t risen above five percent since 1987. In the state’s oil country, unemployment hovers at around two percent, and pretty much everyone who wants a job—as long as they are old enough and not incarcerated—is employed. North Dakota has either tied for or had the lowest unemployment in the country since 2008.

If you are a CEO in America, what is the surest way to get at least $4 million in compensation in two years? Why to burn $14.5 billion of course. Such is the sad plight of mortgage zombie Freddie Mac CEO Ed Haldeman, who as Politico reports, is set to depart the company after just two years of joining. So what is Mr. Haldeman’s claim to fame over those 8 quarters? Why nothing short of collecting $14.5 billion in “Treasury Draws” over the two years. What is a draw? The technical definition: “Represents the draw requested based on Freddie Mac’s net worth deficit for the quarter presented. Commencing in 2Q 2011, the draw request represents the company’s net worth deficit at quarter end rounded up to the nearest $1 million.” In other words, this is the minimum amount of money that the Treasury had to donate to the nationalized mortgage giant for it to continue pretending it is viable. As the chart below demonstrates, the total “draws” received under Haldeman’s tenure amounts to $14.5 billion. This excludes the Q3 number which will be made clear next week. Something tells us with this abrupt departure, the number may be higher to quite higher than expected. But regardless: a job well done Ed. As Politico reports: “Haldeman joined Freddie Mac in 2009 and received $3.9 million in compensation last year, according to Forbes. He intends to remain as CEO until a succession plan is in place. “Ed Haldeman has brought strong leadership to Freddie Mac,” said FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco. “I appreciate his commitment to leadership stability during the upcoming transition.” And now you know how to make millions in America and be part of the 1%.

Yeah — as John Derbyshire (Patron Saint of Dyspepsia) says, ‘Get a government job!’

The president and creative director J.Crew, who in April appeared in a controversial ad for the clothing company featuring her young son with his toenails painted hot-pink, is reportedly leaving her artist husband for another woman.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

‘Artist husband’, eh? Well, that won’t be much of a change. Just another fine day in the Obamanation.

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The American woman, believed to be a former schoolteacher from Virginia, and her Danish colleague, who is in his 60s, were seized from the central Somali town of Galkayo on Tuesday.

Both were already said to be in the hands of pirate gangs in central Somalia close to the town of Haradhere.

Police on Wednesday arrested three men they claimed were members of the armed team contracted by the pair’s employers, the Danish Refugee Council, to guard their staff, who officers said were involved in the kidnapping.

Who cares? They’re just kufrs.

Truly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Any non-Muslim who steps foot in Somalia except as an armed member of a military force is an idiot.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Aid Workers Kidnapped in Somalia ‘With Help of Their Own Security Staff’

The cathedral has now been closed for a fifth day over health and safety fears; the longest time it has been shut in living memory. At the height of the Blitz, German Luftwaffe bombers only managed to keep the cathedral closed for four days.

But the musical mob will be putting some cheer back into the place of worship with an Evensong service amid the tents of the anti-capitalist encampment.

‘They may have won all the battles, but we had all the good songs!’

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on St Paul’s choristers fight back against Occupy London cathedral closure with singing flashmob

The pro-choice movement relies on a carefully crafted image to make its position seem responsible and caring: that women should be allowed to abort their unplanned pregnancies because unwanted children grow up poor, neglected, abused or some combination thereof. It can’t allow for the possibility that some “unwanted” children actually grow up in loving homes and become responsible, even successful, adults; or that couples who take responsibility for unplanned children can be as good of parents as couples who wait until they’re ready to have a family.

Not if the Democrats have anything to say about it. Their ability to tax and regulate American labor into uncompetitiveness is without peer, and their ability to pander to let’s-cancel-the-2oth-century envirofascists is second to none. If it ever looks as if American labor is becoming competitive, or American sources of energy productive, the Obamanation will swing into action to return us to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Will Cheap Energy Plus Cheaper Labor Power a U.S. Rebound?

No one should prejudge the patriotism of any American, but your station in life informs your own political views.

Consider today’s economic reality. Last year, 47 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that nearly half (48.5 percent) of all Americans received “some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010,” according to census data, making American families “more dependent on government programs than ever.”

Those Americans – call them “takers,” a crude term but one that accurately describes them as receiving more from government than they contribute – do not have a direct personal interest in fiscal responsibility, limited government or reduced spending. In fact, their livelihoods depend on the “gravy train” continuing uninterrupted.

For the Americans whose income levels require them to pay income taxes – call them the “makers” – they have a discrete and clear interest in taxes remaining low and in government being made leaner and more efficient. This dynamic has been described in Patrick J. Buchanan’s new best-selling book, “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”

Today, the top 1 percent of all income earners account for 40 percent of the federal taxes. If you confiscated every penny earned by the top 1 percent, you would gain about $1 trillion, wiping out these productive Americans and still not balancing the budget.

In 2004, Awad al-Qarni was one of 26 Islamic scholars who signed a statement encouraging jihadist attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, saying “A Muslim must not inflict harm on any resistance man or inform about them. Instead, they should be supported and protected.”

Now, on his Facebook page, he has said “any Palestinian who will jail an Israeli soldier and exchange him for prisoners will be rewarded with a $100,000 prize.”

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Saudi Cleric Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Kidnaps Israeli Soldiers

Gee, if you squint really hard, that looks a lot like ‘devolution’ and maybe even ‘self-determination’.

Somalia is one of those relics of European colonial rule. Africa as a whole would be better off if the colonial-era countries would break up into more natural subdivisions. The chief obstacle is the WaBenzi and their armies; they prefer to have a larger population from which to steal.

Fans of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ know the quiet New Zealand town of Matamata as the location of Hobbiton, the home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, and the beginning and end of their respective quests. Having been vacant for nearly a decade, with just the frames of hobbit holes carved into the hills to mark the location, Matamata has been a favorite stop for fans who take the ‘Lord of the Rings’ tours in New Zealand.

Well, fans have good and bad news. The bad news: as of last week, Matamata is closed to the public. The good news: it’s because they’re rebuilding the Hobbiton set for a two week shoot. As location shooting for ‘The Hobbit’ ramps up, Hobbiton is back and in full swing once again!

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A faltering economy explains much of the job shortage in America, but advancing technology has sharply magnified the effect, more so than is generally understood, according to two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The automation of more and more work once done by humans is the central theme of “Race Against the Machine,” an e-book to be published on Monday.

“Many workers, in short, are losing the race against the machine,” the authors write.

Millions of women obtain abortions because they do not want baby girls.

It’s shocking, but incontrovertible. Two decades ago, Harvard economist Amartya Sen, in an arrestingly titled article, documented the statistical reality that “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing.” In a recently published book, Unnatural Selection, journalist Mara Hvistendahl convincingly demonstrates that the overwhelming reason for the increasingly large demographic disparity in the male-female birth ratio is sex-selection abortion. Hvistendahl estimates the number of missing or dead now to be 160 million and counting. Women have abortions because (among other reasons) they are able to learn the sex of their unborn baby and kill her if she’s a girl.

From that set of facts, the illogical conclusion I’m starting to see is that the top 1% are stealing the nation’s wealth. Villains! But how many people in the top 1% are engaged in some sort of evil? Is it 1% of the 1%? That’s my best guess. I know a lot of people in the top 1%, and all they do is go to work. They hardly ever perpetrate evil. But they do create jobs for the 99%.

One problem with the top 1% simplification is that people who have college degrees aren’t experiencing high unemployment. So it would be equally fair – and by that I mean equally illogical – to conclude that highly educated people are stealing the nation’s wealth from less educated people. That’s a bumper sticker you won’t see.

I would also be willing to bet that the average math skills of the people who are doing well in this economy are better than the average math skills of the people who are suffering. In other words, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are probably comprised of more psychology majors than engineering majors. But no one is suggesting that people who are good at math are stealing the nation’s wealth from people who are not. That’s not a catchy slogan.

I TYPED these words on a computer designed by Apple, co-founded by the college dropout Steve Jobs. The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

And as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker.

Government has essentially one legitimate function, which is to protect citizens from predators, foreign and domestic. That covers national defense and domestic justice (including the enforcement of contracts and prosecution of fraud). Those functions could be provided by private agencies, but — because of the danger of warlordism — they are best provided by government and funded from a true flat tax.

A very elegant statement of the position of the righteous.

A proper division of labor would place defense in the hands of the national government and justice in the hands of State and local governments. This would eliminate the ability of the national government to criminalize conduct for the sake of imposing its will on everyone. For the same reason, the provision of justice should be devolved to the lowest possible level within each State.